The World Gone Mad is a 1933 drama/horror film which pits the district attorney's office against crooks defrauding a corporation from within, unbeknownst to the company's owner.

This film is in the public domain.


This movie is part of the collection: Feature Films

Director: Christy Cabanne
Producer: Phil Goldstone
Production Company: Majestic Pictures Corp.
Audio/Visual: mono, B&W
Keywords: 1930s; horror; corruption

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: billbarstad - - March 17, 2010
Subject: This Is A Gem
This is a well-made thriller with solid acting and an exciting story. Pat O'Brien plays the central character, a reporter, tying the murder of a district attorney to the coverup of a failed corporate pyramid scheme. That's where the name of the movie comes in, referring to the unwarranted belief that unending growth would overwhelm shaky assets or excessive leverage that was the root cause of the Great Depression.

You'll need to listen closely as O'Brien is a fast talker, and he and others use '30s slang. There's also spicy dialog and (gasp!) a man and a woman lying on the same bed!

I haven't figured out how the new DA knew to bring police with him to the big payoff at the end. I'll have to watch this again, but the clue might be lost in garbled or missing dialog due to numerous missing frames.

I downloaded the 295MB 512Kb MPEG4, but found it showed too many compression artifacts, so I downloaded the 1.9GB MPEG2 (interlaced). Aside from the missing frames, there is occasional noise that sounds like rain splashing. Video and audio quality are otherwise fine.

Reviewer: bobsluckycat - - October 30, 2005
Subject: Corporate Greed, 1930's Style
In a film that, in some ways, proves the adage, "What goes around comes around", Pat O'Brien brings his "Hildy Johnson" schtick to portray another fast talking, wise cracking news man, in this fast paced crime drama. Neil Hamilton, a major star from the days of silents co-stars as the D.A. and O'Brien's room-mate and pal. The cast of soon to be well known character actors includes Louis Calhern, J. Carroll Naish, Syd Saylor and Evelyn Brent among others. While the picture is 72 years old, it is pre-production code and fairly well crackles with dialogue and adult situations we don't usually associate with films of that era. Lots of talent in this film and they almost all measure up to Christy Cabanne's direction. Majestic Pictures was a production company and distributor (mainly through the States Rights System)which had ground to a halt by the mid-30's, but did put out a wide array of films of varing quality while it was in business, mostly "B"'s to "B+". This is one of the better ones. Well worth a look. Good print and sound quality too. Enjoy.

Credits

Screen Story: Edward T. Lowe
Photography: Ira Morgan
Art Direction: Daniel Hall
Film Editor: Otis Garrett
Sound Engineer: Dean C. Daily

Directed by Christy Cabanne
Produced by Phil Goldstone

Cast includes Pat O'Brien, Evelyn Brent, Neil Hamilton, Mary Brian, Louis Calhearn, J. Carrol Naish, Buster Phelps, Richard Tucker, John St. Polis, Geneva Mitchell, Wallis Clark, and Huntley Gordon.